


Boil Down

by sans_carte



Series: Four Seasons [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Commander Hearteyes Lexa (The 100), F/F, Sappy, Trigedasleng, no beta we die like ben, tipsy!Lexa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 20:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17474057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sans_carte/pseuds/sans_carte
Summary: In which Clarke learns about trees.  Lexa learns about hangovers. Syrup and promises are made.





	Boil Down

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Diverges from canon after 3x07; we’re pretending that didn’t happen. Un-beta’ed.

“Trees.  You get syrup from trees.”

Clarke is dubious. She has spent quite a bit of time in forests by now, but she has yet to come across a syrup-dispensing tree. After enjoying the sweet stuff on her oats that morning, she had asked Lexa where it came from during a break between diplomatic meetings.  From the reply, Clark would suspect the other girl is pulling her leg; Lexa has a surprisingly sneaky sense of humor.  But then again there is a lot of, well, _weird_ stuff down on the ground, like glowing butterflies and ferocious apes.

“We get sap from trees.  Then we boil it down until it concentrates into syrup,” Lexa clarifies.

Clarke remembers something from an Ark science class about sap flowing inside of trees, like blood inside of veins.  “How do you get the sap out of the tree? Does it come from the leaves or something?” 

“You will see,” promises Lexa.  “We will have a tapping ceremony in a few weeks when the weather starts to warm, and then a boil-down feast the next full moon after that.”

Clarke narrows her eyes.  “Is this going to involve more walking in the snow?”

Lexa just gives her a slight smile, before the next ambassador arrives for their meeting.

***

As it turns out, the tapping ceremony does indeed involve more riding and walking in the snow, but not very far; plus the drifts are starting to shrink, melting a little more each day now.  In fact, the day of the tapping ceremony is sunny, the bite in the air softened into a promise of warmer times to come.

“Why aren’t we tapping that tree?” asks Clarke.  She points at one as she passes it, keeping pace with Lexa and a short, dark-skinned man introduced as Tomak.

“Wrong kind,” Lexa states simply. Clarke doesn’t ask how she can tell that from barely a glance.  It’s probably a Trikru thing.

“All trees have _tri-jus_ \--sap--but the maple makes the best syrup.  And some of those are too small or in poor health,” Tomak elaborates.  He has a thick accent but still makes an effort to speak the Sky People’s language for her benefit.  Clarke likes him a lot better than the dour Fleimkepa who’s walking a few yards behind them, along with the natblidas, Lexa and Clarke’s guards, several folks carrying metal buckets and tools, and a gaggle of spectators from Polis.

(Tomak doesn’t seem to be afraid of Wanheda, either.  Though that might have something to do with the fact that he had just heard Clarke give an an entirely undignified squawk, after a lump of melting snow fell from a tree branch and inside her coat collar.)

A few minutes later Tomak stops them among a bunch of bare-limbed trees that to Clarke look identical to all the other bare-limbed trees they’ve passed.  He studies the branches and bark of a particularly large one intently, before using a dagger to cut a small X in the bark about three feet off the ground.

“ _Dison laik fos, Heda_ ,” he announces to Lexa, who nods.  His assistants with the tools come up and hand her a mallet and a kind of jointed metal drill with a flattened wooden knob on one end.

With her typical sureness and strength, Lexa places the drill bit against the center of the X and hammers it into the bark.  Then she turns the drill, hands graceful as they ever are with her throwing knives or the braids she weaves in Clarke’s hair.

When the drill is about an inch deep, Lexa removes it, and pale wood shavings fall onto the snow at her feet.  She exchanges the tool for something Tomak hands her, a small metal tube that opens into a spout, and hammers it into the hole.  It’s a spile--Clarke remembers the word suddenly, from something she’d read long ago on the Ark. A book, coincidentally enough, about a girl forced to fight and kill in order to protect her loved ones in a bleak world, and turned into a symbol of war to free her people.

Tomak hangs a hook bearing a metal bucket from the spile.  He gestures towards Clarke.

“Come see for yourself, Wanheda.”

Curious, Clarke moves closer to watch the spile, standing behind a couple of young natblidas jockeying for the best view.  After only a few moments, she’s amazed to see a clear liquid well up in the spout and pour into the bucket, the first drops ringing hollowly.

Lexa steps up next to her, so close their shoulders brush, and gently nudges the natblidas out of the way enough to place a carved gourd dipper under the spile.  When it’s full, she turns and addresses the small crowd. Clarke’s Trigedasleng is good enough by now for her to understand most of the short speech.

“The trees are reborn as winter dies.  Their spirits carry on from season to season, year to year, seed to leaf, as the Commander’s spirit carries on from nightblood to nightblood.  The trees give us sweetness to sustain us all, as we give them our gratitude. Thank you,” she says, raising the dipper up towards the trees towering over them. Then she takes a small sip.  

She passes the dipper to the youngest natblida, who looks nervous but manages to murmur “ _Mochof_ ” and take his own dignified sip.  He passes it on to the next youngster, careful not to spill any sap.  

Only the natblidas drink during this first round, Clarke notices.  A leadership ritual, then, doubtless symbolizing the unbroken chain of responsibility borne by the Commander, and a renewed promise to care for their people.  By the time the dipper runs empty, Tomak and his crew have installed several more spiles and buckets, and are passing around another couple of dippers among the rest of the crowd with less formality.

“Clarke?”  

Lexa is holding out the refilled dipper, just a touch of a smile around her mouth.  Rather than hand the gourd over to the other girl, however, she takes a step closer and raises it purposefully towards Clarke’s lips.  

(Clarke can almost _feel_ the startled intake of breath from Titus, the intensified gaze of others in the small crowd upon her and Lexa, though she’s not sure why. 

“ _Mochof_ ,” she says.  She meets Lexa’s gaze, keeping it as she leans forward and takes a sip.  The sap is cool on Clarke’s tongue, tasting like fresh spring water with a slight tang of metal and a hint of sweetness.

***

The next time Clarke tastes maple sap, it’s in a somewhat different form.  It’s the full moon, the night of the boil-down festival, and she’s been handed a small goblet containing a light brown liquid. When she sniffs it, a sharp waft of alcohol stings her eyes.  

“ _Trisouda_ ,” Tomak tells her with a grin.  “It is strong.”

“No kidding,” Clarke says.  It can’t be any worse than some of the moonshine Monty and Jasper have brewed up, though.  And she can feel eyes on her, from people scattered around Polis’s main square, waiting to see what Wanheda will do.

She tosses back a large gulp of the stuff.  Her throat burns, but she manages not to cough through sheer will.

“ _Ogud, Wanheda_?” Tomak laughs and slaps her approvingly on the back.  Then he shows her how to dissolve a handful of remaining clean snow in the remaining alcohol, softening its bite until a hint of smoky sweetness comes through.

“We make it from some of the first _tri-jus_ of the season, fermented with what is left of the last year’s _shuggawada_ ,” he explains, before disappearing to refill his flagon of alcohol.

 _Tri-jus_ is the maple sap, Clarke has learned, and _shuggawada_ is syrup.  The latter’s sweet smell fills the early spring air, as steam rises in clouds from the three large metal boilers standing in the square.  She’d been surprised to learn that it takes dozens of buckets of sap to make the syrup, through days of continuous boiling over well-stoked fires.  Gallons of syrup have already been produced since the tapping ceremony several weeks ago, but this is the culmination of the harvest. 

All of Polis has gathered for the festival, from the early morning into the night; gonas take watch shifts at the city’s gates so even they can participate.  The muddy square overflows with people, music, woodsmoke, and the smells of food. Clarke has already sampled fire-toasted apple slices and nuts dipped in maple syrup, as well as the delicious slow-cooked wild boar that the Grounders call _babaku_.  

She’s finished her goblet and is contemplating going to find more food when Lexa appears from between the crowds.  She looks stoic and Commander-y even without her warpaint, but her eyes fixate on Clarke as she approaches.

“Commander,” she greets Lexa. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the square this crowded.”

“It is rare,” Lexa agrees, looking around.  “I wish Polis could always be like this. At peace, and in celebration, with the promise of warm weather.  I wish our world was not always so harsh and unforgiving.” She’s waxing poetic. There’s color in her cheeks and a goblet in her hand.

“How much _trisouda_ have you had, exactly?” Clarke asks in amusement.

Lexa squares her shoulders, but her movements are just a shade slower and less graceful than usual.  Her coat is open, firelight flickering off the skin just below her collarbones. “The quantity does not matter.  I would never drink enough to impair my senses.”

“Whatever you say, Heda.” Clarke chuckles. “But don’t complain to me tomorrow when you’re hungover.”

“What does that mean, ‘hungover’?”

With another laugh, Clarke explains it to her.  

“Now it’s your turn to explain something,” she adds, taking advantage of Lexa’s liquor-induced openness.  “A month ago at the tapping ceremony, you served the first sap to me yourself. You didn’t just hand me the dipper like everyone else. Why?”

She hadn’t asked, before, but it’s been bothering her.  Clarke doesn’t like a mystery.

Lexa swallows, her gaze suddenly nervous.  “A person serving their _niron_ food or drink from their own hand is a gesture of loyalty, a promise.  Like swearing fealty, but with a...romantic intent.”

Clarke remembers Lexa kneeling before her and vowing her allegiance to Clarke and her people.  Even with the betrayal still stinging, the horror and guilt of Mount Weather still so raw, the depths in those gray-green eyes had... _unwound_ something inside of Clarke.

She shivers even though the air is still warm, this close to the crowds and fires.  

Her silence seems to fuel Lexa’s nerves. “The gesture, it does not have to be returned—” the commander stammers.

But Tomak re-appears then with his flagon.  He nods towards Lexa’s goblet. “ _Heda, yu gaf mou?_ ”

 _“Sha, mochof.”_  As he refills the goblet, Lexa compliments the man for the year’s syrup harvest, and the quality of the _trisouda_ produced.  He thanks her before making a quick bow and leaving them alone again.  Lexa goes to sip her drink.

“Wait.”  Clarke grasps her wrist gently.  

She steps closer, takes the goblet herself, and brings it up to Lexa’s lips. The other girl pauses.  A spark gleams in her expression, like the fires burning beneath the boilers across the square.

“ _Drein daun, niron,”_ Clarke murmurs.  Lexa takes a deliberate, slow drink.

Ten minutes later, Clarke can taste the sweet alcohol on her tongue as Lexa presses her against a tree, sinking feverish kisses into her mouth.  They’re in a shadowy copse of trees still close enough to the square to hear music and voices, echoing in the sweet-smelling night air. But Clarke only has ears for Lexa’s harsh breaths, the little moans she swallows when she kisses Lexa back, the occasional endearments pressed hot against her neck, her collarbone.

  
_“Ai hodnes...yu ste meizen…”_ Lexa seems to forget her _gonasleng_ words, and then, for a little while, they both seem to lose any capacity for words at all.

***

 

**Author's Note:**

> I took the liberty of making up some Trigedasleng words, partly because I like playing with that language. Also, my headcanon places Polis farther west and north than the usual assumed location (Annapolis, Maryland), because the terrain and vegetation near Annapolis doesn’t look much like what’s depicted in the show. 
> 
> The maple tapping stuff is all real.
> 
> I'm on Tumblr at http://sanscarte.tumblr.com/ for asks and whatnot.


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